Written by: Angel Rodriguez
Edited by: Angel Rodriguez and J.D. Fletcher
A loud shriek fills my ears, as I leap out of bed. It’s still dark. It must be around 6 in the morning. My eyes adjust to the shadows as I stumble through my bedroom. They are open wide as I look around, trying to find my cat; the noise must have been him. He usually makes noises at the most inconvenient times. My hand fumbles on the wall, looking for the light switch. I find it, flip the switch on and turn to look at the doorway. I always leave my door closed while I am sleeping. But the fact that it is open is not what frightens me.
In the entry of my room, there stands a freakish mutant staring back at me. And in its hands, it holds my cat. Its limp body squirms with the last remnants of life. The body of this monster is massive, almost reaching the ceiling, if it weren’t hunching its back. It shares human-like features, but resembles more of a mutated hairless gorilla. It has hair, but only on the top of its head, like a person. Its facial features fairly distinct, yet so scrunched together, I can’t manage to see what expression it holds. With its muscular body, it squeezes my cat in one hand, milking blood out of the lifeless corpse as if it was wringing water out of a wet rag. The face of the creature turns and looks at me. Those eyes, so familiar. Where have I seen them before?
It drops my cat to the floor with a sickening plop. I want to squeal, but I know that that will only provoke this monster even more. Without wasting a moment, knowing that I am next in line, I leap across my room and grab the dragon dagger, hanging on my wall. I throw the sheath onto the bed, revealing the short blade. It is a decorative short sword that my mom got for me at the mall. The hilt is bronze, ornately decorated with winding dragons. I would have never thought I would be using it as a real weapon, as I have been forced to do now. It isn’t sharp, but it’s better than nothing. My heart pounds so hard against my chest, it hurts. And I cannot make a sound. I feel the fear running through my veins like flooded rivers. I look down at my hands. Never did I think that I would be faced with a situation like this. I have no chance with this thing… whatever it is.
What is it? Why is it here? And why is it trying to kill me? How did it get in the house? Are there anymore? I sure hope there isn’t. But I have no time to ponder if more of these monsters are lurking on the other side of my doorway. Now at this moment in time, I have to think. One wrong move and I am dead, for sure. Whatever this thing is, I know that it has no intention of being my friend. It doesn’t look like the smartest being, so maybe I have an advantage here. The ultimate fight of brain versus brawn. But I feel a bit uneasy, looking at how big this thing is. But if I just try hard enough…
The creature jumps toward me with its mouth coming first, dripping with saliva. It lifts me into the air like a pair of ice skaters, except instead of gracefully putting me back down, this fiend is about to put me in its mouth. Thinking quickly, I take the opportunity and thrust the dagger up, piercing the soft pallet of the mouth. I feel the pressure of the soft brain tissues, surrounding the blade. The entire monster’s body falls to the ground with me falling right behind. We both fall to the ground hard and fast. I grunt, as I land a bit awkwardly on my hard, tile floors. I unlatch its massive claws off me and pull the dagger out of its skull. Blood spurts out of the wound, leaking all over the floor.
“What in the hell was that thing?” I whisper into the dead air, extremely out of breath. My hands are dyed a grotesque red. Is this a dream? I push myself up off the ground and check my surroundings. Sure enough, everything is in place; all of my furniture, the dirty clothes strewn across my floor, and even the distinct scent of vanilla, kitty litter, and unclean laundry. I look at the ground, examining the thing that I had just single-handedly killed. Bending over closer, I notice its features. It has somewhat of a womanly shape, body-wise. I check to make sure it is really dead, resting my fingers on its neck; no pulse.
The silence is then broken by another scream. My entire body tenses up in a giant muscular spasm. I know that voice; it is my brother. I sprint through the living and dining room. Just when I thought that my heart couldn’t race any faster, it pounds harder and harder. I reach the back of the house and, there, the door is open. In my brother’s room, stands another creature, just like the one who attacked me moments before. But this one is much bigger and isn’t a female; definitely not a female. This beast is so bulky, I can barely see my brother behind its massive arm. The monster’s grip is held at his neck, pressing my brother against the wall, hanging him at least three feet off the ground. I then see my brother’s widening eyes look at me with hope. I only pray I can take down this behemoth too. I cannot watch him murder my brother right before my eyes. That, I cannot live with.
I jump at the sudden sensation of fur, passing by my legs; it’s my dog. Startling me at first, I relax, knowing that she is here to protect me. She stands at my side, snarling and baring her fangs, with a deep growl rumbling in her throat. She loves my younger brother and I. Anytime my father would mess around with us, poking or playfully hitting, all we would have to do is scream and she would come to us at full-speed. She would easily kill anyone that tried to truly hurt us. But this… this thing? This is not your normal human. Not to mention, she is only about a sixth of the monster’s size. But at this moment, I need all the help that I can get.
Without stopping to think, I jump onto the creatures back and jab the dagger through its thick hide. I use my weight to pull the blade all the way down the length of the creature’s spine. It lets out a sickly scream and drops my brother, but turns to me. Blood and gore squirt out of the long, deep incision running down its back. It tries to come after me, but suddenly falls to the ground, hard as a rock, with just one step. It starts spasming and convulsing while hissing and growling, reaching out for me in a futile attempt to attack. I must have hit some vital nerves. It growls and tries to grab at my ankles, but my dog bounds forward and gnaws on its sinewy arms. I pull her away by the collar, noticing that the monster’s erratic movements had ceased, leaving his eyes a glossy black. Its mouth, open ajar, dripping with gooey spit, while it forever stares at the ceiling.
I step over the body, which was quite a task in itself. Though the creature was lying on the ground, I had to stretch my legs out and over a good three feet. I walk over to my brother, who is choking on the floor. His neck is covered in lacerations in the shape of long fingers. I can see that he is trying to keep in his. I usually would have ridiculed him for crying in anyother situation, but this was quite the proper time to show some fear.
I give him my hand and pull him up. I ask, “Are you ok?”
He nods his head and I ask him, “Where are mom and dad?”
Tears begin to run down his face. He cries, “I don’t know, Angel. I’m scared.”
Placing my dagger on his mattress, I open my arms and he runs into me and clutches me tight. Realizing that I am wasting time, I pull him off and say, “Come on. Let’s look around the house… you too, Callie.”
My younger brother and our dog trail right behind me as we walk through the still house. The air is filled with the thick scent of blood. It doesn’t bother me, but I can hear my brother gagging. The entire house is empty and silent. Our parents aren’t in bed. All of the vehicles are there in the driveway. The usual sounds of snoring or the percolating coffee-maker fill the house around this time. But, there is nothing. No lights. No sounds. Absolute dead silence. All of the doors were locked, too. None of the windows were broken or cracked. How did these monsters get in the house?
Then… it hit me.
I run to my room and kneel beside the freshly killed beast, lying on my floor. I gaze into those eyes again and remember. Those bright green irises with the copper hues near the pupil; those were my mother’s eyes. And I say were, because she is no longer alive. And I had killed my own mother.
My vision begins to get foggy as tears flush through my eyes. I quickly run to the bathroom and start washing my arms and hands vigorously. I can’t hold it in any longer. The tears begin to fall. Nearly silent sobs turn to screams. The water running down the drain is tainted a bright pink. After cleaning the blood off my hands, I still do not feel clean. I will never be stripped of this guilt. And there is no other explanation. I know that was my mother. And the other one was my father. Why didn’t I notice it before? I guess not everyone thinks about what their parents would look like if they turned into mutants; a valid conclusion.
But how did this happen? Why did, all of a sudden, my normal parents turn into these… these savage beings?
I slowly slide down with my back against the wall and start crying. The salty tears burn my eyes, making the pain I am enduring even worse. I hear both the footsteps of my brother and my dog step down the corridor, while they are watching me having an emotional breakdown.
“Do we need to call 911?” my brother, Adrian asks.
I look up at him with disgust and say, “Why? So I can tell them that somehow, our parents turned into freakish monsters and I killed them?”
He asks again, stuttering, “… t-t-hat… that was mom and dad?”
I answer his question with another round of sobbing. Callie comes to my side and licks the water off of my arms. My cries become quieter and I wipe the tears off my face. Never had I felt so confused in my life. I didn’t want to show my brother how mortified I really was. He knew me as being his strong, older sister. And if he sees me here, terrified, he knows that it is all over. But it might as well be, realizing how dim our futures look right now.
“Should we call Ia?” my brother mentions. Ia (short for Maria) is our aunt, who lives on the other side of town.
I consider it for about 5 seconds, then say, “No… they are family. They already think I’m crazy. They will just think I killed my parents just because I felt like it… and not because they turned into mutants and tried to eat us.”
But who can I trust? Family is way out of the picture. My friends will believe that I have finally lost that one, sane brain cell and will leave me to a state of schizophrenia… which they must have predicted years ago. I could not call the police, simply because they would only laugh. I only have one option left. JD; my boyfriend, whom I trust him with everything and anything. I am most certain that he knows me better than myself most of the time. He’s the only one who I know will not shun me because of my seemingly insane thoughts. Knowing him, he would take complete and utter interest in what I have to say, seeing as how strange and supernatural this is. He is my only hope.
Taking a deep inhale, chilling my already stiffening lungs, I grasp the energy to push myself up off the floor. I then walk back to my room. Before I even open the door, I close my eyes and make sure I’m still breathing. Knowing my room like the back of my hand, I close my eyes, open the door, and jump over the body. I land a bit shakily, but I managed to not look or touch the dead creature, just as I had planned. I walk over to my bed, swallowing the lump in my throat. There, on the floor, plugged into the wall, lay my cell phone. I pick it up and hold it in my hands. My fingers are shaking frantically, but I somehow manage to text. After I finish, I look over what I just typed. It says, “If there was ever a time I needed you, it would be now… I’m scared.”
Message sent.
I slide the phone closed and sit on the side of my mattress. With my hands in my palms, I begin to think. I cannot stay here. We need to leave. There is definitely something weird going on. And there is no rational explanation for this to have happened. I open my closet door and pull out a suitcase, then throwing it on the bed. I scream to my brother, “Adrian… pack up some clothes. Bring your cell phone and charger too.”
While I am rummaging through my closet, I hear his footsteps come to my doorway. He asks, “Where are we going?”
I answer, “…anywhere but here.”
He runs off, actually listening to me for once. The smell in my bedroom is becoming unbearable. Though the body had been killed just minutes ago, it smells as if it had been rotting for days; maybe even weeks. I do not dare to look at my mother’s mutant body. I step over to my window and pop it open. The sun should have risen by now. I stick my head out the window, looking at the dark sky. It was not night, but there was no sun. Or at least from what I could see. The atmosphere seems like one giant mass of clouds, like a never-ending sheet of blood. And it isn’t like the red sky you see at dawn or sundown. This shade of crimson was dark; nearly black. After seeing that, my heart stopped. The darkness is not very reassuring. It only gives me a nauseous feeling, deep within my stomach. But I cannot stop looking at the sky.
The air is stagnant and thick. Yet, there is no fog. The entire neighborhood is dark. The streetlights switched off, used to their normal schedule, which means that at this time, the sun should be up. I look to the east, where the blaringly bright orb normally rises. I can barely see the change in shade, the clouds are so thick, blocking out nearly all of the sunlight. It was fighting to come through, but the atmosphere was unrelenting.
Yes, there is definitely something weird going on…
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